Toronto East York, Canada

This page is reserved for tenants who wish to provide evidence of any unresolved landlord violations against ‘property standards’ and the Residential Tenancies Act. Several comments received from Beaches-East York tenants suggest that ‘building code violations’ are not being handled efficiently and this severely interferes with their quality of life. These landlord are ‘difficult landlords’ and do not take complaints seriously hence building codes and other violations are either ignored or are not resolved within a reasonable period of time. They get away with the violations because many tenants are either unaware of the procedures in place to seek redress or are intimidated by the entire process.

Building code violations come under the jurisdiction of the City of Toronto. If you have complaints that your landlord won’t do necessary repairs you can also contact the Municipal Licensing and Standards Department – (Toronto and East York District) at: 416-397-9200 and have a building inspector sent to your building.

You should check out the publication title “Code of Conduct for Chief Building Official and Inspectors”. It can be accessed at this link: http://www.toronto.ca/building/pdf/building_codeofconduct_05oct28.pdf
This document clearly states that the Chief Building Official and Inspectors are required to “Apply the Building Code Act and the Building Code impartially, without influence and in accordance with all applicable legislation.”

There is also the annoying issue of excessive noise from aging plumbing/pipes, faulty ventilation and other malfunctioning systems in a building. These ‘hard to identify’ noises seem to be more prevalent in many older buildings but also occur in newer ones. The excessive noise issue should not be taken lightly as it interferes with your quality of life, not to mention the impact on your health. It is a violation of the municipal building and maintenance standards and also the relevant regulations under the Residential Tenancies Act. Some landlords/property managers often claim that the excessive noises have unknown origins and they are looking into the problem but are they simply stalling to keep maintenance costs down. Tenants should pressure these landlords/property managers to act promptly to resolve the excessive noise violation. Tenants also need to come together and co-operate to get these violations resolved by filing a FORM T6 with the Landlord and Tenant Board. It is recommended you check the City of Toronto Municipal Licensing & Standards link for more detailed information on the noise violation bylaw.

Tenants can also contact the Investigation and Enforcement Unit of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing to investigate offences under the Residential Tenancies Act. Here is that link: http://www.mah.gov.on.ca/Page142.aspx

An important issue that tenants are dealing with in this tight and expensive rental market is ‘Renovictions‘. Renovictions is a disturbing trend where landlords claim a unit needs to be renovated. Renovications is a method used to evict tenants under the pretext that landlords or their relatives can move into that unit. The concern is whether the renovations are ‘major vs. low-level’. In an increased number of cases these ‘renovictions’ are low-level and not major renovations and the outcome is that the landlord rents the unit to tenants willing or able to pay the inflated rent.

Refer to these links for helpful information on this issue of Renovictions:

We will list the names of the errant property management and address of your building and will include a detailed description of the Building Code violation as well as your efforts to resolve the problem. We will also post your photos of disrepair, etc. to substantiate your complaint. Please include communications with the landlord and City inspectors in your attempts to resolve your problem. Remember . . . . it is crucial that tenants provide detailed documentation of a building code violation, and also how it is handled by both the landlord and City officials.

You pay rent and abide by the conditions of the rental agreement and are therefore entitled to enjoy all the amenities in your building. Do not be intimidated by the behaviour of the landlord or the landlord’s agents.

You can provide details of your experience in the comments section below:

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8 Responses

Landlord:
Rouly Nektapios Antonopoulos
Also an agent at a private Royal LePage in the area.
Behaviour:
Intimidation, coercion, neglectful of repairs and maintenance for weeks, upwards of months (e.g. broken hot water heater, blocked drain plumbing, broken washer, etc.)
All he wants is money, regardless of what his responsibilities are, and avoids any ‘inconveniences’ at all costs. When he doesn’t get something he wants, he immediately threatens to evict on the basis that he wants the house back to move into it.
Despite being respectful and nice to him, and relenting to his threats in hopes of keeping the peace despite unfairness, he is still unkind. Ultimately, he resorts to intimidation and harassment by beating down our door after 8pm and calling us at all hours of the day, whether we’re at work or at night.
Everyone that has ever lived here (including us) has left or is leaving because of this horrible landlord, who has no regard for others, and this house that’s falling apart. Avoid at all cost, in any dealings.

I rented an apartment in a converted house at 196 Spadina Road, Toronto, Ontario, M5R2V1. The landlord’s name is Adel Kirloss. I believe he has more than one property and I would suggest avoiding him at all cost.
The landlord is never responsive with repairs and complaints. There were issues with the apartment itself but the main problem came from the landlord.

The repairs that have been brought up were never repaired. Such as the furnace, water leakage, blocked pipes from before moving in, lights that don’t work, wall sockets that do not work, non working freezer etc. We raised the issues to him but he never replies and when he does and promises to fix them, they never get fixed.

The main issue though is with the landlord, Adel Kirloss. We requesred rent receipts from him numerous times throughout the rental period and he refuses to give them out. We have gone to the inverstigations board and he basically lied to them saying he has given them to us and that we have just lost them. His statement changes everytime and is inconsistent.

Upon end of the lease, he had a lady called Joanne come by to pick up keys on behalf of him and to inspect the place. The lady said it was all good and everything is fine. However, he is now claiming that the “damages” that we reported to him were done by us and that it is the reason we are not getting our rent receipts which is contradictory to what he claims from before. He is asking us to pay him to fix the fridge which was not working prior to moving in already and other things such as leaky pipes which actually caused property damage to my belongings.

My guess is that this guy is a shady landlord and he’s been wanting to sell the house for a while. We rejected to move out early when he got an offer without compensating us and he is now trying to claim that the place was vacant to avoid paying taxes on the property. But all in all, this guy is just difficult to deal with, disregards the law and tries to intimidate you with his mistaken understanding of the law and bylaws.

Hey B, just out of curiosity, was it stipulated in your lease with this landlord that repairs are of this kind are to be made by him? Under the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act, leaky pipes, the fridge are indeed the landlord’s responsibilities. Nonetheless, I’m just wondering what your lease looked like and whether you signed it before or after paying any money? Hope your later rentals went better 🙂

I live at 43 22nd street south etobicoke, for a very short amount of time. The time that I was there was very frustrating and unsafe. The land lord would come when ever he wanted and what ever time he wanted into the apartment, we could be naked and he would care, we does not fix anything we tell him to. We had our bathroom over flow with feces, we called him and told him that he had to change the baseboards and anything that had touched it, but when he came and took our the ruined baseboards I noticed that the bottom walls were covered in mold. I took pictures while he was gone to get few things. When he came back he ignored the fact that the walls were moldy and continued to put new baseboards to hide it. At one point he got tired of doing that and so he painted over the baseboards that he didn’t change and left. we kept telling him to hire someone who has a lisence to work with mold but he denied it. We sent him 3 options – go to court, cancel our contract or fix it with a professional but he chose to go to court. Few days later he comes in with an inspector and I would over hear their conversation and it turns out that we were right. Later that night he texted us saying we could leave. He has also put cameras in one of the units which to me that’s lack of privacy since the laundry is in someone else’s apartment.

This guy’s name is mike and I don’t recommend you living in 43 22nd street south etobicoke. This guy is rude, unprofessional, and just an animal that likes to take advantage of people. If you want your peace and privacy go somewhere else but there.

I am currently renting a basement apartment unit at 269 DONLANDS AVE.
My land lady is Vivian. I have rented from Vivian since October 1, 2010. I am moving out of my unit at the end of September 2014. The main reason for this is because Vivian is a negligent landlady.

I am compelled to bring Vivian’s negligence and questionable behaviour to your attention. I have attempted other avenues for dispute resolution that have not been successful. I am raising a red flag, as I believe that Vivian is taking advantage of her tenants. She is also neglecting her responsibilities as a property owner.

Vivian has a long history of questionable behaviour, so I have summarized some key facts below:

• Vivian once asked me to represent her in a COURT CASE against another tenant. I refused to do this.

• The maintenance worker rarely cleans up after himself after working in my unit. He is also unreliable in terms of keeping appointments.

• Vivian recently altered our payment arrangement WITHOUT my consent.

• When I was first making arrangements to move into the unit Vivian asked for a UTILITIES DEPOSIT. This is ILLEGAL—The only deposit a landlord can ask for is first and last months’ rent. I was unaware of this law when I gave Vivian a utilities deposit for $150 in October 2010.

• Vivian takes long trips to Greece in the summer and winter months. She does not check her e-mail regularly when she is out of the country, nor does she provide a phone number at which she can be reached.

• More often than not I have to question Vivian in terms of how she calculates the utility bills. Quite often there are discrepancies. In fact, Vivian recently asked me to pay more than my share for the hydro bill. I refused. Vivian also expects her tenants to pay bills in advance when she goes away for extended periods.

• For over a year Vivian stored lumber, furniture and other flammable items in the common area outside my basement unit. These items sat directly across from the furnace room. I had no other choice but to phone the FIRE MARSHAL because Vivian refused to remove these hazardous items.
• When the fire marshal completed an inspection, it came to my attention that a number of fire extinguishers in the house were expired.

• Vivian failed to provide road salt for the property this past winter. I share the responsibility of clearing snow and ice on the property and was unable to keep the property safe. I had a BYLAW OFFICER come to inspect—He ordered Vivian to clear the snow and ice.

• I find myself questioning the LEGALITY of some of the terms in the lease. For example, Vivian expects her tenants to perform yard work in the summer and clear snow in the winter. She does not provide rent abatements in return for completing these tasks. I have stopped performing these tasks for Vivian.

• I brought a number of maintenance issues to the Landlord and Tenant Board. A HEARING was held in March 2014. Among other orders, the Board ordered Vivian to have the laundry room cleaned once a month. She has refused to do so. Generally speaking, Vivian neglects the interior common areas of the house.

• Vivian is extraordinarily unprofessional when corresponding on e-mail.

• I suspect that Vivian is taking advantage of the older Greek couple that lives on the top floor. I have spoken to the daughter of this couple; she has taken Vivian to court a few times. Generally speaking, all the tenants at 269 Donlands have had issues with Vivian.

I think the government should allow tenants to make upgrades/renovations to their rental units which they can they deduct from their income taxes for that year. The same as they did for homeowners.

I live in an older building in Orangeville which is desperately in need of major repairs. We’ve had tenants fall and break arms due to the serious deterioration of our parking lot, among other ongoing problems. It’s time they allowed the tenants to have new flooring installed etc. and deduct the cost from their taxes.

I want to make this as simple as possible.
I live in an apartment building located on Dawes Road, East York. For some time now there have been bad feelings between me and the landlord because he would not pay the annual interest on the last month’s rent as required. So, based on the government regulation we have been paying rent but not the increases. The bad feelings between me and the landlord got worse after I took part in a demonstration about Landlord Licensing. Shortly after the demonstration and, much to my surprise, my key could open the apartment door. However whoever interfered with my lock was unaware that a family member was at home all day and I was able to get into my apartment. Otherwise, I would not be able to enter the apartment. We tried all our keys but they wouldn’t work. The following day (Saturday) I went to the super and I told him I was concerned about my safety and I needed to have the lock changed immediately. The super came up with excuses he cannot do anything on Saturday since the management office was closed. I filled out the repair order form, photocopied it and gave it to him. From that day on I had to make sure someone was at home everyday because we cannot unlock the door from outside and won’t be able to enter our unit until they replaced the lock. Someone always has to be at home. There are outstanding repairs with the wall crumbling and the pipe in the washroom running continuously. On the day of the demonstration a newspaper cameraman took pictures showing the state of disrepair in our apartment as well as areas around the our apartment building. I can’t put up with this much longer.